The Bake Off Bake Along 2015: Week 5 – Alternative Ingredients

Week 5 and we’re halfway through, something that I’m actually quite sad about! The Bake Off has gone so quickly already and I’m loving the new categories, especially this weeks- alternative ingredients.

It’s been a year of sugar, gluten and dairy free recipes, with the likes of Hemsley + Hemsley, Natasha Corrett, Ella Woodard and so many more queens of greens. I have a very split personality when it comes to this style of alternative cooking. Half of me loves the idea of having such a nutritionally balanced and clean diet, the other half of me just bloody loves nearly everything filled with sugar, gluten and dairy!

As for GBBO this week, it was an interesting one, some of the sugar free cakes looked delicious so I was tempted to try out one of those. The pittas I thought were pretty boring, although I do like pitta bread, I didn’t fancy tackling the technical. The bake this week that really caught my eye was the ice cream roll. At primary school I always looked forward to the days when we had Arctic roll for pudding and this was basically the same thing, just a dairy free version (absolutely perfect as I’ve also never been able to eat too much dairy rich food at once and my brother is quite seriously allergic!)

The bake happened over 2 days this weekend, mainly as ice cream takes a seriously long time to freeze when you don’t have an ice cream maker. Adam had requested a chocolatey coffee caramel version of the ice cream roll rather than the fruity versions chosen by most of the contestants on the show. If I’d done a fruit version I was tempted to make banana ice cream, yum! Instead I settled for dairy free cappuccino ice cream, salted caramel sauce and chocolate sponge with chocolate decorations.

Cappuccino Icecream

Ingredients

• 2 cans full fat coconut milk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• Double shot of espresso (about 1/2 a cup of strong coffee)
• 1.5 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp cocoa

Method

1. Combine coconut milk, sugar and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat and whisk until sugar has melted and the mixture is combined (approximately 5 mins)
2. Remove from heat and whisk in the vanilla and cocoa powder
3. Transfer to an ice cream maker, following instructions and the freeze until nearly hard
4. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, place in two empty ice cream tubs and freeze, taking the mixture out of the freezer every hour and whisking vigorously to incorporate air and break up the ice crystals. The more you do this, the less dense the ice cream will be (it does take a bit of effort to remember every hour though!)
5. When the ice cream is thick and will hold it’s shape (but not frozen solid) quickly transfer it into a tight roll. I did this by scooping it onto baking parchment that was lining a loaf tin and then wrapping it tightly in cling film in both directions.
6. Best results are when you leave it to freeze overnight (or for another 4-6 hours at least) and finish off the bake the next day.

Salted Caramel Sauce

Ingredients

• 7 tbsp white sugar
• 2 tbsp soft brown sugar
• 7 tbsp cold water
• 120ml coconut milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• Pinch of sea salt

Method

1. Add the sugar and water to a small pan and stir over a medium heat. Once the sugar has dissolved, turn up the heat and stir continuously letting it bubble for 3 mins or so.
2. Pour in the coconut milk and keep stirring until fully combined.
3. Turn down the heat and allow the sauce to simmer for 10-15 mins until it has thickened
4. The sauce can then be transferred to another bowl to cool until ready to spread on your cake

Swirly Chocolate Sponge

Ingredients

For the decorative paste…

• 1 large egg white
• 40g/1.5 oz plain flour
• 30g/1 oz caster sugar
• 30g/1 oz dairy free butter

For the fatless sponge…

• 4 large eggs
• 100g/3.5 oz caster sugar
• 100g/2.5oz self-raising flour
• 30g/1 oz cocoa powder

Method

1. For the decorative paste, mix all ingredients together well into a paste and spoon into a piping bag with a thin nozzle
2. Draw out your decoration on a piece of paper the same size as your tin, cover over with a sheet of baking parchment
3. Pipe the paste in the shape of the design and pop into the freezer until you’ve finished the sponge.
4. To make the fatless sponge, preheat the oven to 200 degrees
5. Whisk together the eggs and sugar in a bowl with an electric whisk until they get to the ribbon stage (the mixture holds its shape for a few seconds when you run the mixture back over itself)
6. Sift the flour and cocoa powder into the mixture and fold in using a metal spoon
7. Spread the mixture over the baking parchment and frozen paste in a large flat pan and bake for 8-10 mins.
8. The cake it done when a knife comes out clean, but you don’t want to overcook it else it will crack.
9. Once out of the oven, turn upside down on the worktop and gently peel off the baking parchment.
10. With a clean tea towel, flip over and cover with the baking parchment you have just peeling off (the decorative side should be on the bottom)
11. Roll the sponge gently around a wine bottle whilst it is still warm and wrap in the tea towel until cool.
12. Whilst the sponge is cooling, melt your chocolate and pipe into pretty patterns on a sheet of baking parchment and refrigerate until hard.

Dairy Free Ice Cream Roll – Assembly

1. Once cool, gently unroll the cake and spread the un-decorated inside with the salted caramel sauce.
2. Take the ice cream sausage out of the freezer and unwrap from the parchment/cling film
3. Trim both ends of the ice cream to square them off
4. Laying the ice cream at one end of the sponge, roll it tightly up so that the sponge covers all of the ice cream with the seam at the bottom.
5. To neaten you may need to trim each end of the sponge.
6. Decorate with your chocolate shapes (I had to make a slit in the top of the sponge to hold the swirly top decoration).
7. Et voila – you have a perfect, delicious and creamy dairy free ice cream roll!

I absolutely LOVED this bake, after my disastrous creme bru-lake last week, it went so well and came out exactly as I hoped it would. We even took it to Adam’s parents as a Sunday dinner pudding and everyone really enjoyed it. Without an ice cream maker the ice cream is a little bit more crunchy, but the whole look of this bake was so great and the cappuccino/salted caramel/chocolate cake combination was unbelievable! Alternative Ingredients, you’ve been a winner in my eyes so far!